Start your Engines We’re Celebrating Jack’s 3rd Year

Jenna’s little guy turned 3 last week!

When we started planning Jack’s third birthday back in July, we were optimistic that given the way things were going in Winnipeg at that time that we may be able to have a pretty “normal” birthday party.  Fast forward a couple months and things were anything but “normal” and gathering sizes were reduced to 10 people indoors and honestly, I felt uncomfortable with even 10.  Like many others I felt deflated and disappointed (I had already ordered an unnecessarily large cake and cupcakes lol) but I was determined to make this birthday just as special as any other!

I chose a race car theme because he is currently obsessed with all thing’s cars (specifically Corvettes), right down to the license plate. My friend at @parkcitycustoms even made made a super cute Corvette shirt for my birthday boy to wear at his race car birthday celebration.

The Set-up

We set up the celebration in my family room and kitchen, it’s a pretty blank slate and afforded us the opportunity to get creative with décor.  My family spends most of our time in the family room and since we would be dining in the kitchen it only felt right to add some fun there too. I added some décor to the front step because, why not?

The Menu

We kept the menu very simple…PIZZA from Mr. B’s (they are our go to pizza spot) and caesar salad.  Pizza is Jack’s ultimate favourite food so of course it was the only logical option…and well salad was for hubby and I, we have to set an example where eating greens is concerned, right?!

For dessert I ordered a custom cake and cupcakes from my friend at Pieces by Pieces in Winnipeg. Reese knocked it out of the park with an amazing 2 tier Corvette cake, which was much more than needed to feed us but now all of our friends are getting cake delivery for the next couple days.  I also ordered cupcakes adorned with Manitoba license plates…I wasn’t joking when I said Jack was obsessed with all thing’s car…including the license plates.  Jack was thrilled when he saw them, and I quote “this license plate is delicious”.

The Décor

Décor is always a highlight to plan – I knew I wanted more pastel colours like light green, light orange, light blue, light yellow and grey as opposed to the traditional bright colours that tend to come with a race car themed party… and of course I had to incorporate the checkered flag element where I could.

The centerpiece of the décor was a fringe backdrop we made which was meant to look like an abstract checkered flag, we incorporated gold and silver to represent first and second place medals.  Jenn really put it over the top with a stunning balloon wave complete with giant balloons that we finished off with a handmade VROOM pennant banner. It was one of very few décor pieces but made a big impact and was the perfect place to snap off a few 3^rd birthday milestone photos.

And what is a race car party without a race track? Luckily my coffee table is already dark brown, almost black…so I used white duct tape to map out roads that I placed Jack’s favourite Corvettes on.  Now we have talked in the past about some of the lessons we have learned, take note… DO NOT stick duct tape directly to your coffee table, in hind sight it WILL take all of the finish/paint off when you remove it (whoops). I guess we will be enjoying a race car track coffee table for a few months! I continued the duct tape road map out to the front step…Jack loved it and is still having fun with it a couple days later!

In the kitchen, I kept it simple with white and silver plates and checkered napkins.  I added a letter board with a cute saying and a set of Ready, Set, Go signs in white frames with red, yellow and green balloons to look like a traffic light.

I finished off the décor with a few strategically placed balloon bouquets adorned with various cars as balloon weights.

Lessons Learned

Throughout the planning of Jack’s Birthday (we started months before) I had to scale back the guest list a few times and every time I felt a little bummed.  We are very blessed to have so many friends and family members who care about our little boy and it was tough not being able to have them join us to celebrate his 3^rd birthday…even a few hours before we scaled it back to way less than the 10 people we could have had. When I sit back and think about it all I can say with 100 percent certainty he had the time of his life, and that is what its all about.  Sometimes we get caught up in the mentality that bigger is better, but in this case, we made some really awesome family memories with our super small celebration.

And the second biggest learning lesson…don’t put duct tape on furniture lol, put down a tablecloth or poster board first!

We have always loved to plan parties and genuinely believe any size celebration can be special.  As restrictions continue to evolve and change, we know it is tough, but we are here to be your small celebration specialists. Check out our other blog posts and follow us on Instagram @bronzeandvine for all our tips and tricks to small celebrations.  Just because you may be celebrating with only those in your household doesn’t mean there aren’t easy ways to make it out of the ordinary!